Merck and VelosBio Inc. have entered into a definitive agreement, where Merck, through a subsidiary, will acquire all outstanding shares of VelosBio for $2.75 billion in cash.
VelosBio is a privately held clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company committed to developing first-in-class cancer therapies targeting receptor tyrosine kinase-like orphan receptor 1.
VelosBio’s lead investigational candidate is VLS-101, an antibody-drug conjugate targeting ROR1 that is being evaluated in a phase I and a phase II clinical trial for the treatment of hematologic malignancies and solid tumors.
In October 2020, VelosBio began a phase II clinical trial (NCT04504916) to evaluate VLS-101 for the treatment of patients with solid tumors, including patients with triple-negative breast cancer, hormone receptor-positive and/or HER2-positive breast cancer, and non-squamous non-small-cell lung cancer.
In early clinical trials, VLS-101 demonstrated a manageable safety profile and early signs of anti-tumor activity. Results of a phase I clinical trial, to be presented virtually at the American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting (Dec. 5-8, 2020), showed that VLS-101 resulted in objective clinical responses, including complete responses, in 47% (n=7/15) of patients with mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) and 80% (n=4/5) of patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.
Patients in this phase I trial had been heavily pretreated with other anticancer medications, and their cancers had failed to respond or had relapsed after initially responding to these other anticancer medications. In addition, VelosBio is developing a preclinical pipeline of next-generation ADCs and bispecific antibodies targeting ROR1 with the potential to complement VLS-101 by offering alternative methods of tumor cell killing.
The closing of the transaction, which is subject to approval under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act and other customary conditions, is expected by the end of 2020.
Merck was represented by Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP as legal advisor and J.P. Morgan Securities LLC as financial advisor. VelosBio was represented by Cooley LLP as legal advisor and Centerview Partners LLC as financial advisor.
